


Dreams of You and I

by TheIronGoddess



Category: Dragon Ball
Genre: Battle Couple, Dreamscapes, F/M, Power Sharing, Soulmate AU, background chi-chi/goku, background vegeta/bulma, friends to combat buddies to lovers, relevant human characters are relevant, ze slowest of ze burns
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-01-07
Updated: 2019-04-23
Packaged: 2019-10-06 02:53:05
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 3
Words: 16,150
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17337329
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheIronGoddess/pseuds/TheIronGoddess
Summary: (Soulmate AU) Every night after she fell asleep, Videl would meet a little boy with a tail. She'd been having these dreams all her life and thought that she knew her unusual friend well, but she had no way of knowing the turn his life would take after the arrival of his uncle, or how it would affect her.





	1. Innocent Beginnings

**Innocent Beginnings**

* * *

Videl Satan was on the hunt.

Blue eyes scanned over all the surrounding bushes and glanced up at low hanging tree branches as she searched for her elusive quarry, a determined frown set on her young face that never wavered even as each potential hiding spot came up short.

Her target was smart, but he didn't play this game often with anyone other than her and Videl was the best hide-and-seeker in her class. She NEVER lost. Not even when Sharpner tried to hide by climbing up a tree to get on the roof of their preschool, a move that backfired since he was too scared to climb back down after she found him and the teacher had to call a fire truck so he could be rescued.

She didn’t have to worry about anything like that today though. Her current target wasn’t as reckless as the troublemaking blond boy at her preschool. He wouldn’t do anything that could hurt someone just to win a game, so if she stayed patient and kept her eyes peeled she was bound to see him sooner or later.

Sure enough after a few more minutes of searching her playmate was betrayed by a furry brown tail sticking out from the hollow log that had fallen from a downed tree. Grinning in triumph, Videl crept around to the other end of the log, silent and careful to keep out of sight, before peering upside down into the opening into her friend’s startled eyes.

“BOO!” She shouted, making the boy yelp and jump straight up, which lead to him banging the top of his head loudly against the log he was hiding in. Videl toppled over, cackling loudly as the boy crawled out of his hiding spot, pouting as he nursed the now tender bump on his skull.

“That was mean,” he whined as he sat down on the dirt next to Videl while she struggled to regain her breath. It had taken her ages to get her friend to the point where he wasn’t scared of messing up his clothes and making his mom mad, but she was glad she got through to him and got him to loosen up a little because he was way more fun to play with when he wasn’t worrying all the time.

Though honestly, even his worrying could be kinda funny from time to time, like when he panicked and squirmed over Videl doing something dangerous or scary like climbing large trees or jumping off a big cliff into the water fully clothed until she managed to entice him into joining her. He was so expressive in his own, timid sort of way, and she always welcomes the chance to get him to come out of his shell a little.

“S-sorry,” Videl giggled, grinning at her friend in a shameless and unapologetic sort of way as his pouting got even more pronounced, “it was kinda funny though.”

“Was not,” was the reply grumbled at her. Videl just bit back more giggles in response.

“Come on, don’t be mad Gohan. Tell you what, you can pick the next game we play,” she relented by way of compromise. Gohan brightened at the offering before thinking hard about his options. 

“Can we do riddles?” He asked at last with a shy sort of excitement, his tail wagging excitedly behind him. Videl wrinkled her nose a little at the suggestion. She was  _ terrible _ at riddles. Seeing her expression, Gohan deflated, tail drooping like a wilting flower, “w-we don’t have to if you don’t want to!” he assured her, “I can think of something else to do,” for a second, Videl was tempted to push him to do just that, but she had told him that he could pick the next game, and he hardly ever asked to play riddles with her since he knew she didn’t like them. 

“No, It’s fine. We can do riddles,” Videl agreed, smiling when her friend cheered happily at her agreement. It was kinda frustrating but really riddles weren’t  _ so _ bad, if it was just every once in a while to make her strange friend happy.

“You go first!” Gohan urged her, crossing his legs and leaning forward a bit as he waited eagerly for Videl’s response. By their normal rules, he should have been the one to start their game since it was the one he wanted to play, but Videl wasn’t going to complain if he wanted to let her have the first turn. Telling a riddle was the easy part, after all, the one who had to guess the answer had the hard job.

“What can you catch, but never throw?” she asked, remembering a rather good riddle she’d heard from her teacher a week ago in school and held onto for this occasion. She didn’t think the riddle would actually stump him very long, but she’d liked it and thought it was rather clever when she heard it.

“A cold,” Gohan answered confidently, grinning when Videl blew him a raspberry at his quick answer, “alright, my turn. There’s only one letter that’s never been on the Periodic Table of Elements. Which letter is it?”

“The  _ what _ ?” Videl asked, gaping at her friend in confusion.

“The Periodic Table of Elements,” he repeated, “it’s a table for the chemical elements that’s organized by atomic numbers, electrons, and chemical properties,” as he explained this to her, Gohan picked up a nearby stick and began to draw boxes into the dirt as Videl watched on curiously, “there are 118 elements, and each one has one or two letters that symbolize each specific element. But there’s one letter that has never appeared on the Periodic Table at all. Which one is it?”

“Uuuuh… ‘V?” Videl guessed. She knew from experience that the first letter of her name was rarely used for anything.

“Nope. Vanadium’s symbol is ‘V’ and Livermortium is ‘Lv,’ so it’s on there twice,” Gohan said, smiling as he wrote a V and Lv in two of the boxes he had drawn, “this is a hard one, so I’ll let you have five guesses this time instead of the usual three, if you want.”

“Gee, thanks,” Videl muttered grumpily before sighing and examining her friend’s hand drawn table again, “okay, so how about ‘Q’ then?” She grinned a little as Gohan frowned thoughtfully at her answer.

“That one’s a little trickier,” he admitted, “see, technically ‘Q’ isn’t on the table anymore, but at one point the element Flerovium was called Ununquadium, and used the symbol ‘Uuq’ before they switched it to ‘Fl.’”

“Hey, that’s cheating!” Videl pouted indignantly, “if it’s name was changed and the letter ‘Q’ isn’t there anymore, then it shouldn’t count!” 

“The riddle is that the letter is the only one that’s never EVER been on the periodic table, not the ones that aren’t on it now,” Gohan countered, oddly bold. But then, it was always that way for him, when it came to stuff like book smarts and science, “but since you technically got that one right, I’ll give you a hint. It’s one of the first 10 letters of the alphabet.”

“Alright, so A’s gotta be there somewhere...” Videl said, frowning hard in concentration as she thought through the rest of her options. ‘B’ was a maybe, but she wasn’t gonna bet on it. ‘C,’ ‘D,’ and ‘E’ were probably there too. ‘F’ was for sure, since he’s just said something about that Fler-whatchamacallit. ‘G’… another maybe. ‘H’ and ‘I’ had to be there, too. And all that left was “...’J?’”

“Yep! You got it!” Gohan said, giving her a proud grin. “And you did it in three guesses too! You didn’t need any of the extras at all!”

“Yeah, because you gave me a hint,” she grumbled. But despite that, she still felt pretty proud of herself. She didn’t do all the extra reading and studying her friend did all day, so it felt good when she didn’t get completely stumped by one of his brainiac questions. 

Now it only she could stump HIM for a change.

“How many seconds are in a year?” Videl asked, grinning in confidence. She felt a little more cocky about this one. Her friend, however, frowned at her suspiciously. 

“Well… normally, the answer would be 31,557,600, but you don’t like math like that, so I don’t think you mean it that way…” He said, looking thoughtful. Videl pouted a little, disappointed that he didn’t fall for her trap and give her the obvious answer he clearly knew so she could claim the victory, “oh, I get it! It’s not ‘seconds!’ it’s 2 nd s! The answer’s 12, isn’t it?”

“Yep. You got it,” Videl admitted unenthusiastically with a slight groan as her companion gave a cheer before grinning at her and throwing her his next riddle.

“I have a little house in which I live all alone. It has no doors or windows, and if I want to go out I must break through the wall. What am I?”

“An ant?” Videl guessed with a frown.

“Nope!” Gohan replied, shaking his head, “actually, ant colonies can be really big. There is one recorded Supercolony that’s over 6,000 km long.”

“Seriously?” Videl asked, equal parts fascinated and horrified at imagining that many ants in one place. While she wasn’t quite as squirmish about insects as many other girls in her class, even she had her limitations when it came to that sort of thing, “bugs are so  _ freaky _ .”

“They’re not so bad all the time. My mother keeps some beehives for honey and to pollinate the fields, and we have some really pretty swallowtail butterflies that live around my home. Like the Birdwing Butterfly, that one’s over 25 cm long!” Gohan told her happily as he held his hands out to emphasise the size of the insect in question.

“Wow, that big?” Videl said, perking up with a look of awe, “I wanna see! Show me, show me!” Gohan grinned at her excitement before closing his eyes tightly. A few seconds later, the scenery around them began to ripple, shifting and changing as the forest around them melted away like mist. Suddenly Videl found herself in a meadow, surrounded by beautiful flowers she'd never seen before with butterflies of all shapes, size, and color all around her. Some were just tiny white insects as big as her thumbnail, but the largest ones were massive, with flashy black wings that had blue-green markings on them. Videl gasped in awe at the incredible sight around her.

“That’s one right there,” Gohan told her pointing at the large butterfly with the blue-green markings that Videl had been admiring as it took to the sky, “it’s a boy, you can tell because it has the pretty colors. Girl butterflies are usually brown so they blend in with their surroundings better, that way they’re safe to lay eggs and stuff without getting eaten by their predators,” grinning, Videl jumped to her feet and grabbed her friend by the wrist, ignoring his yelp of surprise as she hauled him behind her while she chased down the fleeing insect.

“Come on!” Videl urged him excitedly, “let’s catch it! Hurry, before it flies away!” caught up in her enthusiasm, Gohan eagerly picked up his pace to run alongside her. Their mad dash through the field surprised all the other butterflies in the meadow into taking flight as well, resulting in a chaotic swarm of color all around them, which just thrilled Videl even more. Laughing wildly, the girl spun in place as she took in the sight around her while her friend giggled happily right alongside her. 

“Hey, I see it!” Gohan exclaimed suddenly, grabbing her arm much like she had done to him earlier, “this way, Videl! Hurry!” Videl didn’t know how he could make out anything specific in all the color and movement that surrounded them, but trusted her friend enough to follow him nonetheless, staying close to his heels as the two of them ran through the swarming insects until they broke free from the mess and made their way into the surrounding forest.

“Oooh! I see it now too!” Videl said, brightening when she caught a glimpse of the butterfly as it darted through the leaves. Grinning deviously, Videl darted ahead of Gohan, calling over her shoulder, “betcha I catch it first!”

“Hey! That’s not fair!” The boy protested as she raced off, giggling wickedly to herself. It was WAY too much fun to tease Gohan sometimes. He always had the best reactions. Already she could hear him flustering around behind her to try to catch up, but Videl was nothing if not competitive. Quickening her pace, Videl tried to put some distance between her and her friend. She glanced behind her after she broke past the tree lines, grinning when she saw she’d gained a massive lead on him. Gohan was smart, sure, but he’d told her that he spent most of his time inside reading, while she was always running around the local park, and was faster even than the ten year olds who played soccer. There was no way he’d be able to beat her in a foot race.

“Come on! Keep up, why don’tcha!” Videl taunted back to him, turning around to run backwards just to further annoy her friend. Unfortunately, she wasn’t paying attention to where she was going since she was busy trying to to goad him into racing and too late she registered the look of alarm on her friend’s face. Before she could turn back around and see what had frightened Gohan, though, her foot slipped on a fallen tree branch and sent her falling-

-over the edge of a ravine that overlooked a fast flowing river. 

Videl’s heart stopped and her world seemed to slow down for a moment as she began to plummet towards what was almost certainly going to be her death. Then, suddenly, someone grabbed her arm and pulled her back to safety. She tumbled and rolled across the ground for a moment, caught in the momentum of a force that almost sent her flying straight back into the trees. Her heart hammered loudly in her ribcage as she finally came to a stop, lying spread out flat on her back on the cool mountain grass and the trying desperately to catch her breath after the scare she had just had. 

“A-Are you alright?!” Gohan asked worriedly, kneeling on the ground beside her with the fur on his tail puffed out like a frightened cat. His already pale skin looked ghost white in terror, and he was trembling almost as badly as she was.

“Yeah… I think so…” Videl replied, breathing deeply a few times to try and center herself before turning to the boy beside her with wide eyes, “how’d you catch me? You were over by the trees just a second ago!” Gohan gave her a blank look at that question, before glancing back at the tree line about ten meters away from where the two of them sat now.

“I dunno. I wasn’t thinking about it,” he admitted, sounding just as confused as Videl felt, “I just got really scared when I saw you fall. I didn’t want you to get hurt, so I ran as fast as I could to catch you.”

“Well that’s weird...” Videl said as she sat up, grabbing Gohan’s hand to give it a reassuring squeeze to let him know she was alright. While it was true that the two of them could change their surroundings in The Dream, they could really only recreate things they were familiar with, and only if they focused really hard. They couldn’t make fake or imaginary stuff real, and they couldn’t change what they were physically capable of doing. They’d figured that out when Gohan tried to fly for her, like he’d told her his dad could, but couldn’t do much except hop around on the spot for a minute before he gave up with a pout and just showed her his memories of his dad flying him all around. 

“Maybe I was just closer than you thought?” Gohan guessed, calming down a little now that Videl was safe and thinking logically once more. Videl frowned a little at that. She was almost sure that Gohan was way too far to reach her, but unless he suddenly developed teleportation powers or something there was no other possible way he could have reached her in time.

“Yeah, that’s probably it,” Videl finally decided. Just then, the butterfly the two of them had been chasing after suddenly came down and landed on Gohan’s nose, making him go cross-eyed as he stared at it in surprise. Videl snorted as she tried to hold in her amusement at the sight, before quickly giving up and doubling over in laugher. Gohan quickly joined her, disturbing the butterfly and causing it to take flight again.

“Guess you win, Gohan,” Videl said once she could breathe again.

“We’ll call it a draw, okay?” Gohan bargained with a grin before looking down at his hand, “I don’t think we have too much time left before we wake up, anyways.”

“Already?” Videl whined in disappointment, groaning when she realized he was right and she could just barely see through her hand. Pretty soon, the two of them would fade away entirely and wake up back home in their own beds, “but we were having so much fun!”

“Don’t be upset, Videl. Remember my Daddy’s taking me to see his old friends today? I bet I’ll have lots of fun new stories to tell you when we see each other tomorrow night!” Gohan reminded her in an attempt to cheer his friend back up before they parted ways. Videl grinned a little at that. She did like hearing all the cool stuff Gohan’s dad did with all his friends, like finding the Dragonballs and beating up the Red Ribbon Army and fighting the evil King Piccolo.

“You better!” Videl mock growled as she tackled the boy, making him laugh and she began to play wrestle with him, taking care not to mess with his tail or do anything else that might hurt him. “I’ll make you sorry if you don’t have something cool to tell me!”

“I will! I will!” Gohan agreed breathlessly between giggles. 

“And I’ll try and find a science book you’ll like for story time today, so I can show it to you,” Videl promised by way of exchange, smiling warmly at her friend. Gohan liked science books, but didn’t have the resources to read nearly as many as he’d like, since his home was pretty far from the cities and towns. He only had the books his grandfather bought for him, and while his personal library was nothing to sneeze at, it was nothing compared to a public library, and Videl had learned early on in their strange friendship that she could easily bribe Gohan into doing what she wanted by offering to find him a book.

“How about a Dinosaur book?” Gohan suggested, grinning, “you’d probably like something like that, and I can see how many of the Dinosaurs the book talks about live by my house!”

“Okay, that sounds like fun,” Videl nodded. She would like to know more about the Dinosaurs that lived around Gohan, but Gohan’s mother never let him get too close to them because she said it was too dangerous for children, so Gohan was nervous about conjuring the beasts into their dream world. She’d seen them a little in Gohan’s memories, but Videl had never seen Dinosaurs for real before since they only lived in places where there weren’t many people.

Maybe if she helped Gohan be less scared of Dinosaurs, he’d feel brave enough to dream one up for her and finally let her see them for herself, like he did with the butterflies.

“Just don’t forget your promise! I want another cool adventure story about your dad beating up bad guys!” Videl urged Gohan as he faded more and more. “You better not just hide behind your Dad the whole time and not talk to anyone else like a baby!”

“I won’t! Really, Videl, I’m not a baby!” Gohan pouted childishly as Videl smirked back in reply, “I’ll have a cool story for you, promise!”

“Good,” Videl said, giving a satisfied nod once she was certain that Gohan would honor his word as the two of them began to fade more and more rapidly. “I’ll see you tomorrow night then, okay?”

“You too! Bye-bye, Videl!” Gohan said, his voice faint and far away as the world around them went black and everything disappeared.

* * *

“Videl? You awake yet, sweetpea?”

Videl groaned softly as she opened her eyes, slowly sitting up with a yawn as the knock came at her bedroom door once more.

“I’m awake, Daddy!” Videl called back groggily, swinging her feet over the side of her bed and hopping down to the ground. After shedding her pajamas, Videl dressed herself in black shorts and a red T-shirt with the words LITTLE DEVIL printed on the back in black. Padding over to the door, Videl opened it to find her father standing on the other side, muttering to himself as he juggled both his gym bag and her backpack.

“Good, good, you’re up!” Mark Satan said, grinning down at his daughter in relief, “sleep well, pumpkin?”

“Uh-huh,” Videl said, grabbing her backpack from her father and hugging it close before he dropped it, “my dream friend showed me some butterflies last night!”

“Butterflies, huh?” Satan said, chuckling, “and your little monkey friend showed them to you? Were they pretty?”

“The boy ones are. The girl ones are brown, so they aren’t eaten,” Videl informed her father with a grin as she held her hands apart to demonstrate the size of the butterfly she’d seen, “but they were soooo big, Daddy! Like, THIS big!”

“Wow, that’s one big bug,” Satan laughed, “is that what your friend eats for dinner of something?”

“No, Daddy,” Videl said, pulling a face at the thought of eating bugs, “his mommy cooks him real food, in his house!” 

“I see, I see,” Satan said, nodding sagely, “Mommy Monkey cooks. That makes perfect sense.”

“She’s not a monkey Dad, she’s a normal person!” Videl said, exasperated. She’d told her father this many times before, but he always seemed to forget, “she’s kinda scary sometimes though, especially when she yells.” 

“Oh? Does she yell a lot?” Satan asked absently as he set a bowl of cereal in front of his daughter.

“No, she’s okay most of the time. But she gets mad when my friend goes off to play with his Dad instead of studying. That’s why he’s so smart, because he reads books and learns stuff all day,” Videl explained.

“I see!” Satan chuckled as he took a sip of his coffee, “well that’s not healthy, if you ask me! Boys need to get out and exercise too! Play some sports! Get a little dirty!”

“Yeah, that what my friend’s Daddy says too, but his Mommy says the most important muscle a boy can exercise is his brain,” Videl sighed, “but he plays Tag and Hide-And-Seek and goes on adventures with me, so I guess it’s okay if he has to study when we’re awake.”

“Yeah, I suppose that evens out,” Satan agreed readily, smiling a little in amusement. It was always cute to hear the way his daughter talked so seriously about her little monkey-tailed imaginary friend, like he was actually a real person instead of make believe. And she certainly had a vivid imagination, to dream up such an extraordinary playmate. Satan would probably always enjoy hearing her stories about the boy, especially knowing that she was going to grow out of this little phase once she was too old to play pretend anymore, which would probably be too soon for his liking. After all, his daughter was an active girl who loved running around who would jump at the opportunity to try out for sports once she was big enough for the little league teams next year after she turned six. With real friends and hobbies to distract her, she wouldn’t need her little monkey-tailed boy to entertain her for much longer. It was better to savor this time while it lasted.

And speaking of time...

“Better hurry up and finish your breakfast, pumpkin. We only have twenty minutes before we gotta start heading to your school, and Daddy’s gotta go to the Gym for his training,” Satan said, draining the last of his coffee and setting the mug in the sink.

“Can we stop by the library on the way?” Videl asked eagerly, leaning forward as she spoke to her father, “I wanna find a book about Dinosaurs, so I can show it to my friend when I see him again tonight.”

“Sure thing, sweetheart,” Satan chuckled. He had to admit, he liked the way this imaginary monkey boy got his daughter so enthusiastic about learning. At this rate, she was going to be top of her class, “but we’ll have to leave soon if we don’t wanna be late.”

“Okay!” Videl said, downing the rest of her cereal in record time and then running to the door to get her coat and shoes. Satan grinned as he watched her get ready to leave, blissfully oblivious to the fact that a space pod had just crashed on a farm in the Northern Wilderness, carrying in it an alien who had come to Earth in search of his brother. And that the brother in question was currently atop a magical flying cloud near Mount Paozu, happily heading towards a tiny island on Southern Seas with the very real monkey-tailed boy that Satan thought his daughter had made up. He had no idea then how these events and everything that would follow as a result of it would change the lives of his daughter and himself.


	2. The First Night

**The First Night**

* * *

Videl hummed to absently to herself as she flipped another page of 'The Big Book of Dinosaurs,' re-reading it once more just to make sure she'd be able to recall it clearly for her dream friend. It had been a long day of playing at school and even though she had read the book during story time just like she promised, Videl wanted make sure all the facts in her mind were fresh before she went to bed for the night, a time that was fast approaching. She had already taken her bath, put on her pajamas, and brushed her teeth. Now Videl was just waiting for her father to tell her that it was time to turn out the lights so she could slip into the dream world once more. She couldn't help but grin a little in excitement at the thought of the coming night, and the games she could play with her friend once they met up.

Maybe after they exchanged their stories, she'd talk him into tag? Even if he tried to resist because he was worried about getting dirty or something, she could just proclaim him 'it' and raced off. Sure he'd complain that Videl wasn't playing fair at first, but knowing him he'd still going right along with her anyways and have fun doing it. That was how he always was. If he went to a preschool like she did instead of being home schooled by his Mommy, he would probably get bullied by boys like Sharpner and his friends, who would think that him acting like that made him a sissy.

...Well, that wouldn't happen if he went to her preschool  _specifically_. No way would she let Sharpner or anybody else pick on one of her friends. Or anybody for that matter, but especially not her friends. And if they didn't stop when she told them to, then she'd just beat them up and make them go away. That always seemed to do the trick when someone was mean and didn't listen, if the adventures of her dream friend's dad was any indication.

"All ready for bed, sweetpea?" Satan asked, pulling Videl out of her world as he came into the room, donned in his own pajamas and toweling off his afro.

"Uh-huh!" Videl chirped back, closing her book and climbing to her feet.

"That's my girl!" Satan chortled, tousling Videl's hair affectionately. Videl grinned back as she eagerly made her way into her bedroom, setting the book down on her nightstand as she crawled into bed and pulled the covers up to her chin. Satan smiled at her from the doorway as he turned down the lights for the night, "Sweet dreams, Princess," he said as the room went dark.

"Nighty-night, Daddy," Videl replied softly as she heard the door creak close and shut with a 'click,' leaving the little girl to drift off into the welcome embrace of sleep.

* * *

Something was strange tonight.

Videl frowned a little when she finally found herself in the Dream, more than a little surprised to find it bare and empty. A dense mist swirled all around her feet almost coming up to her knees and stretching into the blue-gray expanse of nothingness in every direction as far as the eye could see, so it almost looked like she was standing on top of a storm cloud. It wasn't often that she fell asleep before Gohan did, so she hadn't seen the Dream like this in quite some time and had almost forgotten that this was the way things usually started out, before she and Gohan found out they had the power to manipulate their surroundings. After that, Gohan would usually recall the forests that surrounded his home when he fell asleep so that the two of them had somewhere they could play.

For a second, Videl considered imagining something up, if only to replace the eerie and lonely emptiness around her, before deciding against it. It always felt draining to maintain an entire scenery the way Gohan did, though Gohan never seemed all that bothered by it the same way she did. Besides, Gohan's forest was always more fun and interesting than anything she could recall. Better to wait for him to come and set the scene instead.

With that decided, Videl began to absentmindedly kick up the mist that surrounded her and watched as it swirled and snaked around her as it was disturbed by her movements, smiling a little to herself at the way the mist moved. Seeing the dream world like this again made her think back to the early days she spent here with Gohan, when everything about this was still new and strange to both of them. She'd been confused and a little scared the first time she had fallen asleep and found herself in this ethereal landscape all alone, but after a minute or two of wandering around aimlessly, she suddenly heard someone crying.

It turned out to be Gohan, alone and scared with no idea how he got into this place or how he was supposed to get out. He'd been searching for his parents for a long time before Videl had found him, at which point he had curled up and began to cry out of fear that he'd never get home. By the time Videl arrived he was shaking and almost invisible in the thick mist, except for his tail which flailed around and caught her attention like a flag waving in a breeze. Videl thought she'd found an animal or something at first and was more than a little surprised when she walked up and found a boy instead of a monkey or something.

For his part, Gohan was really shy at first so it took her a minute to get him talking to her, but once he knew Videl was nice he warmed up almost immediately. After that he was friendly and talkative, happily telling her all about himself and asking her all kinds of questions, as fascinated with her life in the city and her preschool classes and friends as she was with him and his magical flying cloud, super powered father, and house all alone on the mountain surrounded by dinosaurs and wild saber-toothed tigers.

After that first night, she and Gohan would meet again and again every night, to talk and play and have fun. Despite the fact that Gohan's family seemed like something out of a comic book or a cartoon, Videl somehow knew from the moment they met that he was a very real, sleeping in a bed somewhere on Earth just the same as her. The two of them could never figure out why they kept seeing each other after they fell asleep, but it didn't really bother either of them that they did.

As far as either she or Gohan could tell, sharing dreams was something that they and they alone could do. No one else Videl or Gohan talked to had dreams the way they did, and most of the grown ups seemed to think they were just making it up. It was actually pretty cool in Videl's eyes, even if they didn't quite know why it happened. It was like having a secret club or a special hidden fort that only the two of them shared.

As Videl stood lost in thought, she suddenly noticed a form coming into view a short way ahead and broke into a grin when Gohan finally solidified into the dream world, curled into a ball that was almost obscured by the swirling mist around them much like he had been that first night so long ago. She jogged forward, eager to meet her friend and start their usual nightly games, only to slow down as she got closer and noticed that something was really, REALLY wrong.

The first thing to tip her off to this was the fact that Gohan wasn't in his pajamas, instead wearing only green trousers that were secured with a white belt tied at his waist and a sleeveless white undershirt. And while it was normal for most kids to fall asleep wherever in any state of dress, Gohan had never been like that. His mother was too fussy to let her son go to bed wearing his day clothes. He was also dirty, which didn't make any sense because his dad always gave him a bath before bed. What gave her the greatest cause for concern though, was the way he was trembling violently and sniffling quietly to himself, He didn't even seem to notice the fact that he had entered the dream world at all.

"Gohan...?" She called out tentatively, making him stiffen for a moment before he turned to look up in her direction, one hand rubbing at his eyes to dry way his tears. Videl gasped in horror when she finally caught sight of his face and the giant, ugly bruise that colored his left cheek, "G-Gohan! What happened to your-?!" before Videl could finish her question, her friend half tackled her in a hug, squeezing her so tightly that it was difficult for Videl to breathe.

"Videl!" Gohan sobbed, somehow hugging her even tighter, "You don't know how happy I am to see you! It's so scary! I wanna go home! I want my mommy! I want my daddy!" Videl squirmed a little to try and loosen Gohan's vice grip (was he ALWAYS this strong? She didn't remember him being this strong before, when she'd goad him into play wrestling with her) as her friend dissolved into tears, shaking as he sobbed on her shoulder. Videl tried to wrap her arms around him in comfort, like her dad did for her when she cried, but flinched away after touching him.

It was like she'd tried to hug a snowman or something! His skin was like ice!

"Gohan, why are you so cold?" she wondered, "what's going on? Where are your mommy and daddy?"

"I *hic!* I don't know…" Gohan told her pitifully, pulling away to wipe his tears as he struggled to talk, "I don't know where I am. I just wanna go home…"

"What happened?" Videl asked worriedly.

"That scary Piccolo guy took me. He says he's gonna teach me how to fight, because some alien came and fought Daddy, and now his friends are coming in one year and they're gonna kill me if I can't beat them," Gohan explained, starting to calm down a little now that he was somewhere safe with a familiar face but still very clearly distressed.

And with an explanation like that, it wasn't hard to see why.

"WHAT?!" Videl felt her jaw drop at that, stunned at this abrupt turn of events. Her young mind reeled at all the information that Gohan had just given her, which had failed to explain anything but completely turning her world upside down. And she didn't even know where to begin with her questions, "Wh-what do you mean-  _ **KILL**_  YOU?! But Piccolo is- What about-?!"

"Uh-huh," Gohan said, nodding miserably at Videl's incoherent sputtering as he flopped onto the ground, sending up mist all around him. Videl stared at Gohan for a moment as he sulked over his situation before slowly sitting down cross legged in front of him, her attention focused solely on her friend.

"What about your dad? He beat up that Piccolo guy before, right? Can't he save you and take you back home, and fight the rest of the aliens when they get here?" Videl suggested.

"Daddy's dead,"

"WHAT?!"  _that_  was more surprising than the aliens, in Videl's opinion. She'd seen Gohan's memories of his father before and knew how strong the man was. He seemed like he was invincible. So how could anybody-?!

Before Videl could even ask, Gohan closed his eyes, his chin dipping slightly as he began to recall a memory. Moments later a new image took shape from the mist, a broken and battered man glaring with fear and urgency as he laid in a literal bloody mess on the grass. He was trying desperately to get up, but clearly didn't have the strength.

Videl could barely believe that this was Gohan's father, the man who had always seemed so fearless and powerful.

" _Gohan! You have to go!"_  the memory urged as he clutched at a wound on his chest, looking at something above her head with visible anxiety. Unbidden, Videl turned around to see what the man was staring at and found herself gazing up at the most ominous figure she'd ever seen in her life.

He was tall and muscular, with wild and spiky hair that was so long it nearly brushed the back of his knees. He wore some sort of strange armor, black and brown and unlike anything she'd ever seen before with guards on the shoulders that made his already large shoulders look even bigger and matching guards around his legs, which were nearly bare except for a single band on one thigh and his boots. On his face was some kind of weird device with a green screen that went over one of his eyes, which was beeping frantically and flashing weird yellow symbols. And his eyes themselves were dark and cold, stopping her dead in her tracks. They were eyes without mercy or pity, that wouldn't hesitate to kill anything that crossed the man's path.

And with the way he was glaring down at her in pure rage as he advanced, clutching at his chest, Videl definitely got the distinct impression that she was going to die.

" _Gohan, quick! Run now!"_  her friend's father begged. But she stayed rooted to the spot, unable to move as the angry man advanced, frozen to the spot by that dangerous stare. The beeping of the strange device got louder and more aggressive and, for some reason, the man got angrier because of it.

" _What?!"_  the man snarled as he glared down at her position, " _hey, kid! What happened to all that power you had?!"_

" _W-what power?"_  she heard Gohan's voice ask in the memory, trembling with fear. This clearly wasn't the right answer, since it only made the tall man even more furious.

" _Bah! Play dumb if you want!"_  he growled as he drew up to his full height, towering over her dangerously, " _you'll pay all the same!"_

" _D-Daddy… help…"_  Gohan's voice whimpered.

" _Leave him alone!"_  She heard the man in question demand from where he laid behind her, anger and fear warring for dominance in his voice. This cry went unheeded though, and the alien drew his arm up with a furious shout to clench his fist above his head and-

Videl screamed, curling in on herself and grabbing her head in a desperate attempt to block a blow that never came since the memory faded before the man's arm could come back down at her.

"He hit me," Gohan said quietly from where he sat behind her as Videl tried to calm down, not sure how much of the fear she had felt reliving that memory was hers and how much was an echo of what Gohan had felt and too overwhelmed to even bother trying to separate the two, "and it knocked me out. When I woke up, that Piccolo guy told me that Daddy died saving me. Because I was too scared to run away when he told me to. My Daddy's friends are gonna wish him back to life with the dragon balls, but until my he gets back Piccolo says that I have to train with him and get stronger before the other aliens come."

Videl couldn't stop the chill of terror that went through her at that thought.

"Why? Why are they coming here? What do they want?" Videl asked, visibly distressed. She couldn't get the alien's cold eyes out of her head, and couldn't help but tremble in fear at the thought of more monsters like that coming to Earth.

"I dunno," Gohan replied with a frown, "I'm sorry, but I don't know. Piccolo left me after he told me that I need to get stronger so I can fight. I didn't ask why they are coming, and he didn't tell me."

"Where did he leave you?" Videl demanded worriedly.

"I don't know," Gohan answered helplessly, "it's some kind of desert or wasteland. There's bugs, and snakes, and a big mean dinosaur that tried to eat me. I'm stuck on top of a really tall rock formation, and all I've eaten is some apples I found on the ground that weren't even ripe yet. They were still hard and really sour."

"What about your dad's friends? The ones he tells you all those stories about? Can any of them come and save you? Maybe if all of them team up, they could take you away from that jerk Piccolo!" Videl pointed out, only to feel her spirits fall when Gohan just shook his head helplessly in reply, "don't know, huh?" Videl sighed a little, frustrated and depressed at the hopelessness of the situation, "what's the jerk want with you anyways? I mean, yeah your dad's strong, but you don't know anything about fighting!"

"He said I have a special power. And he says I need to learn to use it to save everybody," Gohan told her, his tail lashing around anxiously behind him, kicking up mist and making it swirl and dissipate, "but I don't know how I'm supposed to use it, or even what it is. Plus he says I have to live alone for six months before he'll teach me anything, then flew away,"

"That's not training! That's just being a bully!" Videl exclaimed, outraged. She knew training. She watched her Daddy and the other men train in the gym whenever her dad couldn't get anyone to babysit her when she didn't have school. Training was doing sit ups and push ups, or punching bags, or sparring. Abandoning a little boy in the middle of nowhere with no food or bed and with hungry wild animals everywhere wasn't training, it sounded more like a ploy to get her friend gobbled up by a wolf or a dinosaur.

Videl kept suspicion to herself, knowing that Gohan would just get more upset if she spoke that particular thought out loud and figuring that he had been through enough already.

"What am I gonna do Videl?" Gohan asked her helplessly, staring up at her with sad puppy eyes, "I'm not gonna survive out here all by myself. There's no way!"

"Don't worry, Gohan," Videl reassured him, her face set in a determined scowl, "when I wake up, I'll tell my Daddy what's going on, and we can come and save you! My Daddy's best friend is a police officer, and they find missing people all the time! They'll get you right back home to your Mommy, you'll see!"

"Really?" Gohan asked, lighting up as hope finally began to shine in his eyes, "you really think they can find me?"

"Uh-huh! A few days ago there was a little girl that got taken from the park, but the police found her and got her back home to her parents in a few hours! I'm sure they could find you too if I tell them what's going on!" Videl reassured him confidently, remembering the incident vividly since her Daddy had warned her a hundred times not to go anywhere with strangers afterwards. Gohan grinned up at her, clearly relieved to have a plan of action. Videl, however, was still a little worried, "I don't know if they'll be able to find you as fast as they did that little girl, though. She was still in the city, not some desert. Do you think you'll be okay by yourself for a little bit until they come?"

"I'll try!" Gohan promised, not looking too sure of himself but certainly determined enough to make Videl feel better.

"We should probably leave out all the alien stuff though," Videl said, shaking her head in dismay, "I know it's all true, but if I heard anyone else but you tell me they fought an evil alien, I'd think they were making it all up."

"I wish I was," Gohan replied unhappily, "the mean one who took me said he was my uncle, and that my daddy was an alien too. He called them 'Saiyans,' and said that Daddy was supposed to kill everybody on Earth so they could sell the planet. But Daddy told him to go away, so he took me to try and make Daddy hurt other people."

"Wow. I guess that makes you part alien too then, huh?" Videl observed, eyeing the boy next to her thoughtfully, "that kinda explains why you're so weird."

"Hey!"

"It's a good weird, don't worry!" Videl grinned widely as Gohan gave her a look of hurt, stung by the perceived insult, "come on, Gohan, you're the only kid I know who has a  _tail_."

"It's a Saiyan thing," Gohan admitted grudgingly, curling said tail around him, "Daddy had one when he was little, and so did the alien."

Despite not being as well read as her friend or as good at math and stuff, Videl was a perceptive little girl. And she was quickly beginning to pick up on the fact that Gohan did NOT want to call the alien who she'd seen in his memory his uncle, and didn't seem that happy about finding out that he had alien heritage. She couldn't really blame him for that, after the way the man treated Gohan and his father, but it was still a little bit of a surprise given that she'd never known her friend to get mad or hold a grudge. Cocking her head, Videl studied her friend as he sat curled in on himself, hugging his legs close to his chest.

"Well, Saiyan thing or not, I like your tail," she told him, smiling when that earned her a look of surprise, "sure it's different, but different's not always a bad thing. Your Daddy's different from all these other Saiyan guys, and he's waaaay better if you ask me. I mean, he's a hero and they're a bunch of bad guys."

"Yeah!" Gohan agreed, smiling brightly at Videl, who grinned back in response. She knew that bringing up her friend's cool, heroic father would help get him feeling better. Gohan adored his dad after all.

Not that Videl could really fault him much on that. She'd be pretty proud too if her dad was some awesome hero who stopped demon kings from taking over the world and beat up whole armies all by himself. Her own dad was great and Videl loved him to bits and pieces, but he couldn't fly and shoot energy from his hands or do all the other cool stuff that Gohan's dad did.

Videl got a little jealous of that sometimes, to be honest.

But she could never stay bitter about it long. Because even though his Dad was basically a superhero who could do all this cool stuff, Gohan didn't ever rub it in her face or act like he was better than her because he had such a cool dad. He was more than happy to ask his dad all the questions that Videl had about his adventures and his powers when she asked without making a big deal about it or demanding anything in return, and willingly shared his memories of spending time with his father with Videl. Reliving those memories with him, Videl could easily feel the emotions Gohan had when he and his dad would play. Gohan just loved his father, the same way Videl loved hers.

To Gohan, he was a father first and a hero second. So losing him the way he had would have cut the boy deep. It didn't matter that the death would only be temporary and he'd be magicked back to life soon, Gohan still felt like it was his fault that his brave, powerful, and kind-hearted father died at all. And Videl didn't know if she could say anything about it that wouldn't just make her friend feel worse. She knew it hadn't helped her much, when people gave empty sympathies and told her that it wasn't her fault after her mother walked out and left her and her Daddy behind without even a goodbye.

So instead, she decided to try and focus on distracting her friend, so he wouldn't be so upset.

"It's gonna be awhile before we gotta wake up and I can get the police to come save you. Do you still wanna look at that book?" she asked, cocking her head at her friend questioningly, "I read it, just like I promised, so we can look it over if you want."

"But… I didn't get any stories today from my Daddy's friends," Gohan reminded her, frowning a little guiltily.

"That's okay. You can just pay me back later," Videl said casually. Honestly, the story he told her today about what he had been through was a MUCH more intense adventure than anything she was expecting him to tell her about his father's childhood, but she didn't want to remind him of his day, "I'd hate to think I read this whole book for nothing, after all."

Focusing hard, Videl conjured the Big Book of Dinosaurs into her hands, grinning in triumph when Gohan's eyes lit up at the sight of the book, a small smile creeping on to his face as he scooted over until he was sitting shoulder to shoulder with Videl. Opening the first page, Videl was relieved to see that the pictures and words were all clearly visible. If she didn't remember enough, they'd sometimes end up blurry and impossible to make out, which was frustrating and made for a difficult read.

"That's an Allosaurus!" Gohan said, pointing at the picture of the dinosaur, "I see them all the time when Daddy takes me flying around."

"Really? Are they big?" Videl asked, turning to focus her attention on her friend.

"I guess, compared to a lot of other Dinos. They're smaller than the one that chased me today," Gohan said, frowning thoughtfully, "I think… hang on…" commandeering the book from Videl, Gohan began to flip several pages forward, stopping on a page closer to the middle of the book, "yeah, I thought so! Here it is, a Paozusaurus!"

"That's huge!" Videl said, her jaw dropping at the sight of the vicious looking dinosaur that Gohan had stopped to point at, "how'd you get away from that thing?"

"I wish I knew," Gohan said, shaking his head. "I was running away from it and I tripped. Next thing I knew, I was way up on top of a rock formation and the dinosaur was was down on the ground. Now I'm stuck and I can't climb down."

"Don't worry, the police have planes and helicopters, so they'll come and get you down soon," Videl reassured him. Gohan smiled at her in gratitude, and Videl grinned back before turning her friend's attention back to the book that had been spread open across both of their laps, "Until then, let's read up more on these dinosaurs! Maybe something in this book will give you an idea on how to scare them away or hide from them until you're rescued!"

"Right!" Gohan agreed, nodding eagerly as he flipped back to the beginning of the book. Videl smiled a little at the intense focus on Gohan's face as he began reciting facts about the animals featured on the book's pages. Videl was more than happy to sit back and let Gohan pour over the book, only half listening to her friend's excited ranting about how fast a velociraptor could run or how long a triceratops horns were.

She was glad to see him in a better mood now that he knew she was there to help him, but a part of her still couldn't help but notice that, even in the midst of his excitement and eagerness to pour over the book, Gohan was still shivering a little, and that the shoulder pressed against her own was much colder than it should have been. It made her keenly aware of the differences between their current sleeping situations, her warm and safe in a bed while he was curled up on the ground in the middle of nowhere all by himself, scared and hungry. This realization made something hurt in Videl's chest, and she scooted a little closer in hopes of sharing some of her warmth with her friend. Despite the effort though, Gohan's shivering never ceased, and he never seemed to get any warmer.

It didn't surprise Videl, even though it was a disappointing. She and Gohan had already figured out a long time ago that there were limits to what they could and couldn't do while they were dreaming. For example, while they could share memories and recreate their surroundings, they could never make food or anything like that. When they tried, it turned into a tasteless mist in their mouths.

They also had to be careful not to hurt themselves while they were playing around because any injury they got when they were asleep would be there when they woke up. She remembered getting a bad bruise once from playing too roughly and Gohan had almost gotten into big trouble when Videl accidentally gave him a big knot on his forehead one time playing catch and his Mommy got mad at him because she thought he was lying when he told her what had happened.

How surprised was  _she_  going to be, when Videl and her Daddy brought Gohan back to her and his little house on the mountain after they saved him from that mean Piccolo guy?

Videl smiled a little at that thought, confident that she'd get Gohan back home to his mom and her friend would be okay. And until then, she was going to do everything she could to keep Gohan from feeling scared or alone.

Soon, everything would be okay. She'd make sure of that.

 


	3. Monkey Business

**Monkey Business**

Videl wanted to hit something.

To be fair, this wasn't anything new for her. She’d gotten into trouble more than once for playing too rough or punching a bully. Her teachers got mad at her for it every time it happened and told her she should use her words instead of her fists or find a grown up to take care of things, but Videl always thought that was stupid. 

Asking someone to be nicer never worked because then they just thought you were a wimp who was too scared to fight back, and grown ups wouldn’t do anything except maybe just tell a kid to stop. If the bully was smart about it and didn’t let a grown up catch them, then they’d never get in any trouble at all so Videl decided it was better to just handle the fight herself. That way the bullies knew not to mess with her if they didn’t want to get hurt. Her Daddy was always really proud of her for that attitude and kept saying that she was a fighter, ‘just like her old man!’, and other than time outs and no recesses she never really got into too much trouble for standing up for herself and her friends, so she didn’t see any reason to change the way she handled things.

Unfortunately, this meant that Videl wasn’t very good at sitting back when someone was in trouble and she couldn’t do anything to help. Like right now.

“Daddy! It’s true!” she said in frustration from her booster seat in the back of the car on the drive to her school. “My friend needs someone to save him! You have to call the police!”

“Sweetie, it was just a bad dream,” Mr. Satan said for what felt like the hundredth time that day, starting to get slightly annoyed at his daughter’s doggedness on this subject. Completely understandable since he nearly had a heart attack when his daughter burst out of her room shouting about kidnappers and demanding he call the police first thing in the morning. After he got her to calm down and realized what the problem was, Mr. Satan tried to reassure his daughter and tell her it was all in her head, but Videl wasn’t having it. “The police have real criminals to worry about. They can’t go out looking for little monkeys lost in deserts. Who’s gonna stop the bank robbers and kidnappers if they all left to do something like that, huh?”

“But he’s scared and cold! He’s all alone, Daddy! We need to save him and take him back home to his Mommy!”

“Didn’t you say his Daddy is a superhero?” Mr. Satan reminded her absently as he pulled into the school’s parking lot. “He’ll probably fly in and save him, Videl.”

“But he can’t! His Daddy died saving him from his mean uncle!”

“Superheroes don’t stay dead, pumpkin. I’m sure he’ll be back saving the world when you go to sleep tonight,” Satan assured her confidently. Videl frowned a little at that. It was true that his father wasn’t going to be dead for very long, but that didn’t make her feel any better about just leaving her friend in such a scary and dangerous place. She wanted to help in some way, not just sit around waiting and hoping her friend didn’t get eaten or die of hunger or something.

“But Daddy-!” Videl started, nearly in tears of frustration as Mr. Satan simply got out of the car and came around to open the door and help her out of her booster seat.

“I love you sweetie, but Daddy’s got to go to the gym now,” he told her. “There’s a big competition tonight, and Daddy will make lots of money if he wins. Be good for your teachers today and don’t worry so much about your dream. Just remember it’s all pretend in your head,” and, with a hasty kiss to her forehead, Mr. Satan gently pushed his daughter towards the entrance of the school before getting back into his car and driving off, leaving Videl standing in front of the steps with the grim realization that her pleas for help were going to go unanswered not only by her father, but any other adult she told her story to as well.

Her friend was lost, scared and all alone, and there was nothing she could do to help him and no one who’d believe that any of it was real.

* * *

 

Videl’s day didn’t get any better after being left all alone on the steps of the school. She spent the rest of the morning stewing in her anger and worry. She was a little that her Daddy thought she’d lie about something so important and scared that something might happen to her friend before someone saved him. These emotions kept the five year old distracted all day, so she didn’t do any of the activities she was supposed to or play with any of her school friends. Her teacher pestered her once they noticed she wasn’t joining in, but Videl was still stinging over her father’s dismissal that morning and knew full well that the teacher thought her monkey tailed friend was all made up so she didn’t even bother trying to explain the problem to her. Instead she stayed stubbornly silent even as she got put into time out for being bad, ignoring the jeers and taunts from the other kids as she sat mutely in the time out corner. 

When the day finally ended and her time out with it, Videl wasn’t surprised to find an elderly woman in a skirt and jacket with silver hair pinned up high on her head had come to pick her up. With her father busy preparing for his match in a few hours, that meant he couldn’t come to get her out of school. Whenever that sort of thing happened, Dr. Abbot would come to pick Videl up and she’d hang out with her until her Daddy came home. 

Dr. Abbot was one of their neighbors, an older woman who retired a long time ago. She liked when Videl and her Daddy came to visit her since she didn’t have any kids of her own and her husband died a long time ago. Despite Videl’s initial worries when she met the woman, Dr. Abbot wasn’t the sort of doctor who gave kids shots or stuck lights in their ears. Instead, she studied history and learned old stories and stuff. Her job had a long, fancy name that started with an ‘A’ but Videl couldn’t pronounce it so she just called Dr. Abbot a history doctor if anyone else asked. 

Normally, Videl liked when she got to spend time with Dr. Abbot. Sure she was too old to play games with and her TV was small and old and only had one cartoon channel, but it was still fun to hang out with the older woman. Dr. Abbot as smart and funny, and she didn’t talk to Videl like she was dumb like a lot of grown ups did. She also had a lot of cool stories about how she used to hunt through deserts and jungles to find old stuff for museums, and knew lots of crazy stuff that happened a long time ago. Her dream friend always got excited when Videl got to spend time with Dr. Abbot because she always came to him with cool stories his books didn’t have. It made her feel smart and important to be able to tell him all the stuff she learned from Dr. Abbot. 

Unfortunately, Videl wasn’t in the mood for any stories after the day she had.

“Hello, my little hero,” Dr. Abbot greeted her warmly when she came over to collect Videl after talking with her teacher for a long time, “I hear you’ve had a rough day.” Videl frowned a little at the remark. Normally, she loved Dr. Abbot’s nickname for her, which she’d earned after she climbed a tree to save the old lady’s hat when it had blown off her head and got caught in a high branch. But right now she didn’t feel like much of a hero at all.

Bitter, the five year old kicked mutely at the chair leg as she glared at her lap. Why didn’t the grown ups understand that she didn’t want to talk? What was the point, if anything she said just got ignored and make her mad, which just got her into more trouble?

Thankfully, Dr. Abbot did actually seem to understand since she left the little girl to her sulking, instead collecting Videl’s coat and shoes so she had some protection from the mid-October chill outside. Videl stayed quiet as she shrugged the coat on and let Dr. Abbot zip her up, reluctantly accepting the hand the elderly woman presented to her after walking out the door and onto the steps her father had left her on that morning. 

The two of the walked slowly and silently down the sidewalk until they reached the park. Once there, Dr. Abbot settled down on a bench and pulled some yarn and knitting needles out of her bag, setting to work on her project as Videl stood off to the side, conflicted. She normally liked playing and blowing off steam after a bad day, but there was no way she could enjoy the park while she was still so worried about her friend. So instead of running off to start a game, Videl sat down on the bench next to Dr. Abbot, watching her experienced hands as they quickly and confidently worked the yarn. After nearly ten minutes of being allowed to just sit without being given a hard time for it or feeling like it was punishment for a wrong she didn’t commit, Videl felt herself calm down a little. She still didn’t feel good, not now that she knew no one would believe her when she told them her friend was in trouble and needed help, but she didn’t feel quite so much like punching anyone anymore. 

She just wanted to cry now.

With the anger burning off, fear and helplessness was quickly replacing it. She just wanted so badly to help her friend, to get him home safe. But she couldn’t because nobody believed her when she told them he was in trouble. The whole thing just sucked, and Videl was going to cry even though she HATED crying more than anything in the whole world. So to keep herself from bursting into tears, the four year old turned her attention to her sitter.

“Dr. Abbot?” Videl said, scooting closer to the old woman, who gave a thoughtful hum in response to the girl’s bid for her attention, splitting her focus between her needlework and the child at her side, “what would you do if you had a friend who was in trouble, but you couldn’t help them?”

“What kind of trouble, dear?” Dr. Abbot said, stopping her knitting to focus more fully on Videl.

“Remember the little boy I told you about? The one I see when I go to sleep, with the monkey tail?” Videl said, waiting for Dr. Abbot to nod with a small smile before continuing. “A really bad man took him away from his home and put him somewhere dangerous and scary. I tried to tell Daddy about it but he told me it was just a bad dream. But it’s not. It doesn’t feel made up at all. I don’t want my friend to get hurt, but I can’t make anyone believe me so no one’s gonna help him,” Videl’s voice watered a little as she finished explaining things to Dr. Abbot, who frowned thoughtfully throughout the girl’s story.

“Oh my, that’s terrible,” she sighed. “People these days refuse to believe what they cannot see, my dear. They don’t understand that there’s a world beyond their vision, full of thing that defy explanation.” Videl didn’t know what Dr. Abbot meant by that, but it seemed like at the very least she wasn’t saying it was made up and that Videl’s worries and fears didn’t matter, so Videl felt a little lighter.

“What do I do though?” Videl asked, helpless and frustrated. “I’m scared something bad’s gonna happen to him, and I can’t help.”

“And who says you can’t help?” Dr. Abbot asked. “Aren’t you a little hero? You’re a clever little girl, Videl. I’m sure you can do something for your friend, if you put your mind to it.”

“But nobody believes me when I tell them he’s in trouble. He’s cold and hungry and alone, and there’s dinosaurs and stuff that try and eat him.”

“Yes, that is a problem,” Dr. Abbot agreed. “So why don’t we tackle each problem one at a time. How do you get someone to stop feeling cold?”

“Um… a jacket?” Videl suggested.

“That’s one way, yes. Can you get a jacket to your friend?”

“Nuh-huh,” Videl said, shaking her head so aggressively it made her pigtails whip across her nose. “It doesn’t work that way. We can make stuff in the Dream, but we don’t have it when we wake up.”

“So no jackets. Is there any other way to get warm then?”

“He can make a fire,” Videl suggested. “That’s what they do in the movies and stuff. They make a campfire and roast marshmallows and stuff.”

“Good, good. I have a book at home that talks about how to make a fire. If we go home and read it, do you think you can show your friend what he has to do to make a fire?”

“I can do that!” Videl said eagerly, her heart lifting now that she had something to offer her troubled friend.

“Wonderful, dear. I think I have something about edible plants in my library, too. Could that help your friend find something to eat?”

“Yeah!” Videl said, grinning happily in relief. “Can we go back to your house right now, so I can see it? Please, Dr. Abbot? Please?!”

“Of course, sweetie,” Dr. Abbot said, tucking her yarnwork back into her bag and standing up to offer her hand to the five year old once more. Videl grabbed it immediately and began half dragging the woman out of the park and down the sidewalk, trying to get back to their apartment as fast as she could. Behind her, Dr. Abbot laughed softly at the girl’s attitude, thrilled to see the fiery spirit she loved so much was burning once more.

It took about twenty minutes to walk from the park to the apartments, then up three flights of stairs. They passed Videl’s apartment on their walk down the hall to Dr. Abbot’s apartment. The elderly woman’s home was sparsely furnished, with an old TV, a large brown couch, and an armchair that had a knitted blanket draped over the back. Rather than the TV, the centerpiece of the living room was Dr. Abbot’s four massive bookshelves, lined with thick books and decorated here and there with old pottery, statues, and an occasional picture from back before Dr. Abbot retired. 

When Videl first started coming to stay with Dr. Abbot while her Daddy was working, she was a little worried. There was a sort of museum feel to the place, like you weren’t supposed to touch anything because you might break it. But Dr. Abbot had been quick to put the girl’s fears to rest. Instead of forbidding her from going near anything, Dr. Abbot told Videl what her stuff was and the history behind it, and showed her how to handle them properly so she didn’t break them. After that, Videl became much more comfortable in her elderly babysitter’s house. Which was why the five year old didn’t hesitate to make her way over to the bookshelves and began studying the Titles printed on the spines, less than half of which she actually understood. 

“Which ones were you talking about?” Videl asked the old doctor when she came up beside her.

“Right here is where I keep the things about survival skills,” Dr. Abbot said, pulling three books off of a higher shelf and giving them a rather fond smile. “This sort of knowledge really comes in handy. Sometimes going on an expedition put me and my team in more dangerous situations than we were expecting. It’s easy to lose sight of how dangerous nature can be living safely in a city, and if you’re not prepared it can easily overwhelm you.”

“That’s why I gotta help my friend get back home before he gets hurt,” Videl said, accepting the books from Dr. Abbot. “If he knows this stuff, then maybe he can find his way back home to his Mommy.”

“I’m sure it will be very useful,” Dr. Abbot said with a light laugh. “You’re a good friend, my little hero, to be helping your friend out like this.”

Videl grinned back at her for a moment before she buried herself in the books that Dr. Abbot gave to her to study. She didn’t move after that, and the only times she spoke were to ask for Dr. Abbot’s help when she came across a word she didn’t understand since the guide was a little more advanced than her usual books. Hours flew by as she struggled her way through the information she was being given. By the time her father came to pick her up, Videl could barely keep her eyes open. 

She usually didn’t stay up this late since it cut into her playtime in her dreams, but it was important that she absorb as much information as possible before she fell asleep. Besides, she didn’t dare close her eyes at Dr. Abbots out of fear of getting woken up again once it was time to go back home. Waking up before the night was over forced her to leave the Dream, and whenever she left early she could never figure out how to get back in. That meant she’d have to wait a whole night to see her friend again. For that reason she stubbornly stayed awake even after Dr. Abbot changed her into her pajamas and convinced her to brush her teeth while waiting for her Daddy to come back home once his fight finished. Which he finally did a little after midnight, singing and laughing so loudly that Videl knew he was coming even before he entered the apartment.

“There’s my little sweetpea!” Mr. Satan’s voice boomed happily as he let himself in to Dr. Abbot’s loft with his copy of her key. He was grinning from ear to ear in triumph and had a drunken sway which told Videl he’d won his match and gone out to celebrate afterwards. “How’s it feel to be the daughter of the strongest man in the world, princess?” Videl frowned a little as he father came up to her and planted a sloppy kiss on her forehead. 

“I take it the match went well then?” Dr. Abbot asked from where she sat in the kitchen, a bemused look on her face as she nursed a cup of tea and a book of her own.

“Number one, baby!” Mr. Satan boasted with a loud laugh, flashing Dr. Abbot a victory pose. “Netted myself a cool 500,000 zeni! We gotta hit the town to celebrate, you me and my little sweetpea!”

“I think it’s rather late for that tonight, don’t you? Videl needs her rest,” Dr. Abbot pointed out as the five year old in question closed the book she had been reading.

“Alright, alright. Tomorrow, then!” Mr. Satan said cheerfully as he picked his daughter up in his arms. “Thanks again for watching my little girl, doc.”

“It was absolutely my pleasure,” Dr. Abbot said, smiling warmly at Videl. “Sweet dreams, little hero.”

“Bye, Dr. Abbot! And thanks again!” Videl responded earnestly, earning a small laugh from the doctor. Mr. Satan assumed that his daughter’s gratitude was because the elderly woman had watched her all day, but Dr. Abbot and Videl both knew better. Whistling cheerfully to himself, Mr. Satan happily carried his daughter down the hall to their own apartment. He threw the door open with reckless abandon and set his daughter down on her feet before happily making his way over to the fridge for a beer. 

“So, do you wanna hear how your Daddy beat up his opponents in the ring today, pumpkin?” Mr. Satan asked as he cracked open the can while his daughter shut and locked their front door. “Your old man put on one heck of a show, you know! Even had a guy come up to me and start talking about sponsorships and corporate deals that could get us some steady money! Pretty soon, you and me will be outta this dump and living on easy street!”

“I’m going to bed,” Videl said, not even acknowledging his statement. Even though she felt better now that she had some way to help her friend, she was still upset with her father for not listening to her that morning.

“Already?” Mr. Satan whined. “But I just got in!”

“Good night, Daddy,” Videl said, walking into her room and leaving her father blinking after her in surprise at the cold shoulder he received from the five year old. Shutting her bedroom door behind her, Videl leaned against it with a frown. Didn’t her Daddy even care that she had spent most of her day upset because of him? Her friend was important to her, and she was mad he didn’t help him even a little bit.

Figuring that she had better things to do than sulk about her Daddy’s absentmindedness, Videl walked across the room to close the curtains, blocking out the light of the full moon shining outside, before crawling into bed and pulling the covers over herself. It didn’t matter if her Daddy didn’t believe her when she said her friend was in trouble. Right now, he needed her help.

And she was going to make sure he got it.

* * *

 

For the second night in a row, Videl immediately knew something was wrong when she found herself in the Dream. Only this time, it was even worse than it was the night before. Opening her eyes the five year old didn’t find swirling mist in a blue-gray backdrop she was expecting. Instead there was a thick, blood red fog beneath her feet while the sky above was black, save for the occasional flash of white hot lightning. The whole place was pulsing with some sort of strange energy, like an angry heartbeat pounding all around her and there was an unusual heat, uncomfortable and heavy like she just stepped into an oven. Or a volcano.

For a moment, Videl was too stunned to do anything. The Dream had never looked like this before and she had no idea what had changed it so dramatically. But slowly, inexplicably, she felt herself being consumed by another emotion.

Rage.

She had no idea why she was suddenly so angry. She didn’t have anything to be mad about right now, and she knew that. But that didn’t stop her blood from boiling, her heart from pounding, and her desire to tear something apart from rising. Almost like there was a voice whispering in her head, eating away at her self control until only that anger was left. Anger that pushed her to throw her power around. To destroy something. To hurt.

A vicious growling noise filled the air, and it took Videl a while to realize that it was coming from her. Freaked out by having her emotions hijacked to such an extreme, Videl shook her head furiously to try and dispel whatever had possessed her to make her so angry. Once the storm cloud cleared from her head, her rage was quickly replaced by fear. This… this wasn’t right. She had to hurry up and find Gohan, and figure out what the heck was happening to the Dream. 

“Gohan? GOHAN!” Videl cried out, her shouts echoing all around her as she searched the terrifying Nightmare for any sign of her lost friend. She never got a response though, and her fear grew the longer the silence stretched on. Not to mention the fact that she could feel the weird cloud of anger from earlier trying to seep back into her head. She did her best to keep it away, to focus on finding her friend so they could fix whatever the problem was, but that was easier said than done. As Videl’s cries continued to echo through the barren world around her, they slowly began getting angrier and angrier until she was almost snarling her friend’s name. “GOHAN WHERE ARE YOU?!”

As that question echoed angrily around her, lightning flashed once more, closer and brighter this time, revealing a massive shape that Videl failed to see in the surrounding darkness when she first arrived. All words died in Videl’s throat as both her fear and anger fell away, leaving only shock in its place. The five year old could only stand there, frozen. She scarcely dared to breathe as she stared up, up, up, up, UP and into the glaring red eyes of the monster that stood before her.

It was impossible to make out exactly what it was in the darkness that concealed it which only left Videl with a faint outline of its shape and two giant red eyes glaring down at her. But without a doubt it was the biggest thing Videl had ever seen in her whole life. Bigger than a plane, or a house, or a whole skyscraper. And it’s wasn’t just tall either. This giant had fur and muscles that added to its overall size and made it look even more terrifying and powerful, and when it growled at her it flashed long white fangs that were twice as big as her.

Whatever this things was, it was big, angry, and could swallow her whole if it wanted to. 

Videl always prided herself on her fearlessness. She was never afraid to fight a kid who was bigger than her, and she usually won despite being smaller and a girl. She knew size wasn’t everything in a fight, after all. The bigger they are, the harder they fall and stuff right?

But this was on a completely different level. This wasn’t just bigger than her, it was bigger than anything she’d ever seen before in her life. The idea of trying to take on something like this was absolutely insane. It could squash her without even trying, or gobble her up in just one bite. And despite her usual fearlessness the idea of trying to fight this massive, angry beast left Videl shaking in terror. 

Before Videl could try to overcome her fear and get someplace safe, the massive beast before her suddenly began to move. Dropping to its knees it planted each of its giant hands on either side of Videl, causing tremors that knocked the five year old clear off her feet. Ignoring the pain in her backside from the fall, Videl turned her attention back up to the monster that was looming over her, eyes going wide as she realized that the thing was leaning in closer to get a better look at her. Suddenly, Videl was up close and personal with the creature’s furry, ape-like face being studied closely by it’s blood red eyes. Frantically, Videl tried to remember what Gohan had told her to do when face-to-face with a large predator. Was she supposed to find shelter? Play dead? Make noise to scare it away?

The girl didn’t get time to decide on a course of action though, because suddenly the giant ape thing was smelling her. 

Videl screamed in surprise and fear as the beast inhaled sharply, causing a strong wind to gust towards its nostrils which pulled her unwillingly closer to the creature. An equally strong gust of uncomfortable hot and moist air came gushing out it’s nose a moment later, forcing Videl to roll and tumble backwards until she finally came to a stop. Her head spun at the wild ride she’d been forced to endure before the giant monkey began making a loud noise over and over than had Videl clapping her hands over her ears to protect herself from going deaf. Her wide blue eyes turned to the creature producing the racket, and her fear quickly turned to fury when she realized exactly what it was.

The stupid thing was LAUGHING at her!

“HEY!” Videl said, her outrage at the humiliating treatment temporarily getting the better of her sense of self preservation. “What’s the big idea, you big dumb monkey?!” to Videl’s dismay, this angry demand only made the massive beast laugh harder, practically sending her tumbling back again with the force of its mirth. When she at last found her footing, Videl growled at the animal’s hysterics. “Think that’s funny, do you?”

Before Videl could go off on the monkey for it’s rude behavior, something else caught her attention, making her draw back in surprise to glance around. The area around them was changing. The darkness that had made it so difficult to see until now had started to brighten, and the red began to bleed out from the mist around them, turning it back to a wispy blue-grey. The giant Ape monster was still there, but everything around them suddenly seemed a lot less scary and the weird sense of misplaced anger that had been hanging over Videl had almost completely vanished. Videl’s eyes widened as she realized that it was the Ape and his moods that were affecting their surroundings. But, the only people who should have been able to do something like that were herself… or…

“...Gohan?” Videl half asked, scarcely believing that the scary looking monster in front of her could possibly be her friend. To her surprise, the beast responded to the name she spoke by tilting its head at her in a questioning sort of manner, as though asking why she was calling to him. For a moment, Videl stared slack jawed at the giant monkey her friend had apparently become before her previous actions caught up to the girl, causing her to flush bright red in embarrassment. 

“You jerk! You almost scared me half to death!” she yelled up to him furiously, causing Gohan to pull back a little and give an annoyed growl in response. Somehow, Videl knew what he was trying to say, though how she could possibly know what beyond her. “Oh, don’t even TRY to tell me not to yell after this stunt! I thought you were gonna eat me!” that statement earned her an unimpressed grunt that had Videl giving her friend a dirty look. “Watch who you’re calling scrawny! You might be bigger than me right now, but I’m still a year older than you, you know!” Sighing a little in frustration, Videl shook her head in dismay before giving Gohan a curious look stepping a little closer to better examine her friend. His giant form was still a little scary looking, but it bothered Videl a lot less now that she knew Gohan was the one under all that fur and muscle. She knew her friend, and she trusted him not to hurt her. “So how’d this happen, anyways? I mean, we’ve never been able to change how we look in the Dream before, so why now?” 

Gohan cocked his head to the side at her question before the scenery around them changed and shifted, the misty dreamscape slowly replaced by the sight of a wasteland at night. Videl and Gohan sat next to one another on a large plateau, though she looked almost comically small next to her oversized friend. Videl shot Gohan a curious look at the sudden change in their surroundings before glancing around them in awe. Dimly, she realized that this must’ve been the place that Piccolo had dumped her friend. She frowned to herself a little at how barren and unforgiving the land around her looked. How was Gohan supposed to find food and shelter in a place like this? Before she could ponder that question very long though, her eyes were drawn up to the full moon above her and an almost hypnotic pull began to sweep over her. It was only when Gohan gave a soft growl of concern that Videl was able to pull herself out of it, shaking her head to dispel the haze that had almost fallen her before turning a questioning look to her friend.

“The moon? You looked at the moon and that’s what made you this way?” Videl clarified, earning a sharp nod in response. The five year old frowned a little at that. “But… you’ve seen the moon before, right? How come you never turned into a big ape thing before now?” Gohan cocked his head at the question and made a confused noise in response. “No clue, huh?” Videl sighed to herself as Gohan frowned deeply, giving a worried rumble. “Your brain feels fuzzy? Yeah, whatever did this to you was messing with my head too when I got into the Dream. Seems like everything’s better now, though.” That got Videl a snort of annoyance from Gohan. “Well if being a big hairy Ape bothers you that much, then why don’t you turn back?” she demanded, rolling her eyes when her friend responded with a childish whine. “You said the moon turned you into this, right? Then maybe you’ll turn back when the moon goes away. You know, like a werewolf. Or Weremonkey, I guess, in your case…” 

Gohan considered this for a moment before relaxing a little, apparently accepting the logic of Videl’s advice, making the girl in question grin a little. Gohan was book smart, sure, but being a whole year older than him meant she had more common sense. If Gohan didn’t have her there to help him through this confusion, who knew what her poor friend would be getting up to right now! 

“So what’s it like being so big, anyways?” Videl asked in fascination. Gohan wrinkled his nose in response to that, looking as though he’d just tried to eat a whole lemon. “Oh come on! It’s gotta be at least a little cool to be so big and strong, right? I bet you if you wanted to, you could even beat up Piccolo like this!” The lemon-wince got even more pronounced at that statement, making Videl roll her eyes. “What do you MEAN you don’t wanna beat him up?! He kidnapped you, remember?! Don’t you wanna go back home to your Mommy?” Gohan squirmed a little at the question and made noises that were surprisingly small for such a big Ape. Videl replied with a frustrated sigh. “You don’t want to hurt anyone? Even after everything he did? Man, you are hopeless. You know that right?” shaking her head in dismay, Videl decided to give up on trying to convince her friend to use his transformation to give his abductor some much needed karma. “Well, whatever. Anyways, I went to go see Dr. Abbot today. Wanna hear some cool stuff I learned from her?” Gohan perked immediately, monkey face brightening with eager curiosity that made Videl grin. “Okay, so when I woke up this morning I tried to tell Daddy that we need to go to the police…”

* * *

 

Piccolo honestly didn’t know what to make of what he was currently seeing.

He knew Son Goku’s brat had potential to be powerful, if the kid could stop sniveling and cowering long enough to learn to take care of himself. He’d seen the kid’s power firsthand, though the boy himself apparently had no recollection of attacking his alien uncle to save his father’s life. With two more Saiyans bound for Earth and only year to prepare, he figured that the situation was more than desperate enough to warrant some rather radical actions he was certain his better half would not approve of, and thus made preparations to train the boy to fight. So far, the kid had been nothing but a disappointment, a sad shadow of the incredible strength he saw earlier when the child let loose on Raditz.

He was just about ready to up and abandon the kid to the limited mercy of the wasteland when out of nowhere the boy up and transformed into a giant goddamn APE of all things, nearly giving Piccolo a heart attack in the process. Upon his change, the child easily destroyed the cliffside he’d spent most of the day stuck on, turning it into a pile of rocks before roaring loud enough to make the earth itself quake. Piccolo had been half afraid he’d have to fight the giant ape, who’s ki was easily ten times as powerful as it was when the boy fought Raditz, but to the Demon King’s surprise the monster ended it’s rampage there. Piccolo couldn’t say for certain why the giant ape suddenly calmed down, but it kept him from having to fight such a beast so he wasn’t about to look that gift horse in the mouth. Instead, he settled for breathing a quiet sigh of relief when the Ape seemed to nod off, curling up next to the destruction it caused and closing its eyes to fall asleep. 

_ Is this the power that Raditz mentioned earlier? Is this what happens when a saiyan with a tail looks at the full moon? _ Piccolo wondered with a frown as the massive monkey give a loud snore. And more importantly, could his half-saiyan student possibly learn to control this power, and turn it against their enemy when they came to Earth? If he could channel this power without losing his mind it could help turn the tides of battle in their favor. Especially if the Saiyans intended to use this transformation against them when they came.

_ Something else to add to the lesson plan, I suppose. _ Piccolo mused, deciding it was probably in his best interest to test this power and see if it could be of use. It made him nervous to know that the boy had such a quick and easy way to get more powerful than him, but he didn’t seem interested in using that power to hurt anyone so Piccolo figured it was best to leave things be for now.

Besides, there was something else Piccolo was a little curious about too. An odd fluctuation in the boy’s energy while he slept. When normally a human’s ki would be low and steady during their period of rest, Gohan’s would actually spike higher at random before settling down to it’s normal level. It was a little distracting, and it irritated Piccolo at first. Now though, Piccolo couldn’t help but wonder why his energy would surge and ebb the way it did while he slept. Perhaps that could be worth investigating as well, at some point. 

_ First things first, though. _ Piccolo thought grimly to himself as the sun began to rise over the horizon and his kidnapped charge slowly shrank back down to his normal size. If the kid was going to be of any use in battle, he had to learn some self-reliance. Daddy wasn’t always gonna be there to hold the brat’s hand, after all. Once the boy could manage by himself without whining or crying or trying to run off when things got tough then they could move on to actually teaching him how to use his energy and fight. Those tasks took priority over everything else, and any other potential interests would be secondary.

Now that the boy had gotten himself down from the cliff, albeit accidentally, he should be able to manage well enough on his own power. Deciding that his time from here on out would be better served training instead of coddling his rival’s sheltered offspring, Piccolo materialized some clothes for the boy to replace the ones he tore when he transformed, as well as a sword to protect himself with.

“There. You’re on your own from now on, kid. If you’re still alive in six months, then your real training will begin.” Piccolo told the sleeping child gruffly before taking to the sky and heading to another part of the wasteland to focus on his own abilities.

With only a year to train, he’d have to make every last second count if he wanted to make it out of this battle alive.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> NOTE TO THE READERS;
> 
> Thank you so much for being patient with me as I worked on this chapter! I had to restart it three times since the original plans I had for it just weren’t working out, which made it frustrating to try and get through. Now that we’re here though, I feel a lot better about it. In regards to Gohan’s Oozaru transformation, I know technically in the manga it happened on the first night, immediately after Gohan was abducted, but for the sake of the story I decided to wait and instead have Gohan transform the second night instead. Also wanted to play around a little with the idea that Gohan would have a slightly easier time gaining control of Oozaru than a full Saiyan would have since he’s half human and less likely to lose his mind. Especially when you add Videl into the mix to serve as an anchor so Gohan can focus and not lose himself to the destructive anger of the transformation.
> 
> As for Videl and her acceptance of the fact that her friend can apparently turn into a giant monkey, I’m going to base her reaction a lot on the fact that she’s five and Gohan’s her friend so she doesn’t realize she ought to be more freaked out by this than she is. Kids can be pretty oblivious to just how dangerous or scary things are sometimes, after all… At any rate, her influence was enough to distract Gohan from going off on the rampage he had in canon, so Piccolo didn’t blow up the moon or yank his tail. Naturally, this will definitely affect the coming fight with the Saiyans, as well as offering some changes in how Piccolo will train both Gohan and himself. Also Piccolo has taken notice of something strange happening to Gohan’s energy when he sleeps, but isn’t curious enough to investigate it yet. Sooner or later though that is going to change. And when it does...


End file.
